The smell of dust after rain, the one smell that reminded Sebastian Moran of childhood, those carefree days where nothing really mattered. Those days were gone long ago, replaced with adrenalin filled days of danger and excitement and fear and death. The metallic smell of blood and gunpowder had become commonplace in his life; it was familiar, comforting.
And yet, on a rainy afternoon, when the cold had seeped into his very bones after hours of sitting alone on a roof or some other lonely place, the smell of dust was oddly comforting. It reminded him of what was, of what he used to be, the innocence of a childhood long left behind, the innocence now replaced by a killer who enjoyed… relished watching someone else suffer. Replaced by a man who would do anything to please a crazed psychopath.
And was that, in the end, what this was about? Did it really just come down to making his Boss happy? Was the only reason he did all of those things, so that Jim Moriarty would think more of him, so that he would be held in a higher regard? Since when had the sniper really cared what others had thought or felt about him? Since when did pleasing someone else matter more than the killing itself? How was it that this ridiculous desire to be needed had ultimately led to his demise, who knew that it would turn out like this.
Because now the days filled with adrenalin and danger and excitement and fear and death had been replaced by something else entirely. By emptiness, by a ceaseless yearning for a man he could not have, a man who was dead - a man who had killed himself to beat his enemy - a crazed psychopath who had paid the ultimate price.
A crazed psychopath who Sebastian had loved immensely, and he had realised it too late. Only in those crucial last few seconds had it hit him like a ton of bricks. There had always been something between the two; those longs nights when Jim was bored had to lead somewhere after all. But Sebastian had only realised that he felt that way about the other man in the final few seconds and so in no time at all Sebastian Moran had loved and lost.
And so this was where it was all leading to. To being stood, alone, a year later - in the exact spot where he had seen the only man he had ever cared about die - with a gun pressed to his own head, ready to end it all.
Should I continue with this?...